A House on Liberty Street

by Neil Turner

  The nurse nods and departs.

  “What’s happening on Liberty Street?” Pat asks.

  I tell her about Penelope’s injunction and add, “Trustee Smith held a press conference today and asked folks to keep you in their prayers.”

  Her eye widens in surprise. “What was that about?”

  “He said he wanted to discuss the Trib’s story about redevelopment at the next village meeting and claims the mayor shut him down. He’s questioning what’s really going on, what the mayor’s hiding. Then he presented a slide show of what he called the other ninety-five percent of the houses on Liberty Street that Titan and its minions were hiding from the public.”

  Pat smiles. “Sounds like the election campaign is underway.”

  I smile back. “Smith claimed that his little dog-and-pony show was designed to shine a little light in the dark corners where Mayor Brown and his cronies are trying to ‘ram this travesty through in an undemocratic manner,’ or words to that effect. He threatened legal action if the paper can’t get to the bottom of it, then urged the attorney general and feds to get involved.”

  Pat’s brow furrows. “How did I play into this?”

  “Smith wondered if the shooting might have been related.”

  “Wow. That’s pretty strong stuff.”

  I nod with satisfaction. “Yes, it is. Now we wait to see what comes of the village board meeting on February fourth.”

  But first, the battle for Papa’s life is about to commence.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It’s eerily still in the Cook County courtroom on Tuesday morning as we await the start of Papa’s trial. The chessboard that is pre-trial strategy has been carefully set. Preliminary motions have been heard and argued; opening moves have been painstakingly plotted. We’re about to enter into the fog of battle, where the best-laid plans seldom survive first contact with the enemy. For the first time in my courtroom experience, the terminology of warfare seems wholly appropriate to the stakes.

  The combatants are assembled and in position. I’m at the defense table with Mike on my left. Papa is seated to my right. Only my father’s restless fingers and haunted eyes betray the fear and apprehension that must be churning inside him. He’s dressed in a wine-colored suit Mama coaxed him into buying years ago at Montgomery Ward. The $700 suit I picked up for him to wear during the trial has been returned to the store; deemed unsuitable by Mike. “He’s an elderly blue-collar guy. The jury should see him as they’d expect to see a man of his station in life.”

  Across the aisle sits Alexander Dempsey, decked out in a conservative blue suit replete with a miniature American flag pinned to the lapel. Beside him is a severe woman we’ve seen on and off in the pre-trial hearings. Sylvia Perez is an up-and-comer in the state’s attorney’s office.

  Behind the tables for the prosecutors and the defense team, several rows of chrome and fabric chairs extend to the back of the courtroom. Detective Jake Plummer sits directly behind Dempsey and Perez, looking much as he did the evening this nightmare began. As lead investigator, he’s one of only two potential witnesses allowed in the courtroom throughout the proceedings. The other is Plummer’s partner, who is seated beside him. The partner is a little taller, a little older, and a little balder. His department store suit struggles to contain his swelling paunch. A couple of junior assistant state’s attorneys sit quietly alongside the detectives, ready to run errands as needed. They remain in the background to promote the fiction that the respective sides in the courtroom have more or less equal manpower to draw upon. Given that the day will begin with jury selection, the courtroom is otherwise largely deserted.

  When Judge Mitton arrives just after eight, I wipe my sweaty palms on the pant legs of my suit while my gut starts to churn out the first wave of what promises to be buckets of stomach acid. We spend fifteen minutes arguing about jury selection. When we’re done, the judge spends a minute scribbling notes while the tension builds.

  The courtroom has been updated to accommodate modern electronic and security requirements. Windowless off-white walls rise up to white acoustic-ceiling tiles. The carpet is a light shade of gray. Harsh fluorescent lighting pours down on the straight-edged minimalism of the bar, bench, and witness stand, all equally devoid of character. My mind wanders to mental images of comfortable old courtrooms conjured up by reading southern novels—aging rooms with imperfect glass in high windows that bend shafts of sunlight pouring in from a blue sky. Stately ceiling fans whirring overhead stir sultry air pregnant with human sweat and anguish. The picture strikes me as more humane, less contrived, less coldly calculated to deliver assembly line justice… less frightening for a fallen son fighting for his father’s life.

  Judge Mitton brings my meandering mind to heel. “We won’t be leaving here today until we’ve sworn in our jury and gotten the prosecution case underway, so you can either cancel your evening plans or make sure we don’t fritter away the day with needless delays. Understood?”

  We get to work. Twelve jurors and two alternates are selected before lunch recess. The prosecution works hard to block minority jurors, but we manage to seat four. As Mike explains it, “If this trial turns on Deputy O’Reilly’s behavior, the State’s worst nightmare is a jury of folks who have plenty of experience dealing with cops like him.”

  We want those jurors for that very reason. What a system.

  “Looks like Judge Mitton is going to keep things moving along,” Mike says happily as we leave the courthouse to eat. “I hate trials that drag on longer than they need to.”

  “Billable hours,” I remind him. “The name of the game.”

  “Not around here. How’s Pat?”

  I tell him about my hospital visit and finish by mentioning Reverend Jakes, launching into a brief explanation of who he is.

  Mike holds up a hand to stop me. “So, you’ve met the Reverend Alvin Jakes, have you?” he says with a slow smile.

  I nod.

  Mike chuckles. “He’s quite a character, isn’t he?”

  “He is.”

  “Pat’s well-known in the Black community. She’s done good coverage over the years—sympathetic coverage. A lot of folks regard her as a sort of honorary sister.”

  “I didn’t know,” I say with an inner smile. Physically, they don’t come any whiter than Pat. Spiritually, maybe not so much.

  When we return to the courtroom after lunch, the contrast from the sleepy atmosphere of the morning is startling. The press is out in force, including a contingent from Court TV. The reporters are seated behind the rows of seats reserved for family members of the victim. Only a few of them are filled, save for a handful of police officers and the public mouthpiece of the Fraternal Order of Police—the police union commonly known by the acronym FOP. More spectators are eventually allowed in to fill the empty seats.

  Behind us sit Mr. and Mrs. Vaccaro, Mr. Rosetti, the LaSusas, and a handful of other neighbors and parishioners Mama and Papa befriended over the years. I recognize several men and women who worked long years alongside Papa in the laundry room at Cook County Hospital. The rest of the courtroom is filled with God alone knows whom. Mike calls them the usual collection of kooks and curiosities that populate a courtroom. Oddly enough, to me anyway, many of them seem to know one another. They carry on spirited conversations while we await the judge.

  “All rise,” a bailiff orders when the door behind the bench finally swings open. “Cook County Criminal Court is now in session, the Honorable Judge Myron Mitton presiding.” The judge marches in and drops into the high-backed chair behind his bench. After arranging some papers, he settles back to survey his domain. He’s fully engaged today. His eyes move from the prosecution table to ours and beyond, darting to and from in a bird-like display of alertness, an unsettling mannerism I’ve noticed before. It’s never seemed as exaggerated as it does this afternoon, or perhaps that’s just my tightly wound nerves amplifying events.

  “Good afternoon,” Judge Mitton says to the assembled host
.

  A chorus of reciprocal greetings echoes through the courtroom before the judge quiets the crowd with a light tap of his gavel. “Let’s bring in our jury.”

  Alex Dempsey plants himself before the jurors once they’re settled and begins his opening statement. After the usual rhetoric about how the prosecution will explain what happened on the evening of September seventeenth, Dempsey launches into an attack on my father. With a look of contempt and a voice dripping with disdain, he aims an accusing finger across the courtroom at Papa. “The defendant has a long history of defying the authority and traditions of civil society, ladies and gentlemen. While the rest of us pay our property taxes—perhaps with a little grumbling,” Dempsey adds with a knowing glance at his fellow tax-payers, “the defendant thinks he’s entitled to a free ride. The Village of Cedar Heights felt otherwise and took action to recover its delinquent taxes. This eventually led to a foreclosure action. Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew O’Reilly visited the defendant’s house on September seventeenth to deliver an eviction notice, a task that is routinely completed without incident. But when this… this, individual was served, he flew into a rage. While the unsuspecting deputy stood on the defendant’s front step carrying out his duty on behalf of society, the defendant ruthlessly gunned him down in a merciless barrage of bullets.”

  When Dempsey pauses for a sip of water, Mike dips his head and whispers, “Only one of which found its target from a range of two feet or thereabouts. Now there’s a stone-cold killer for you. Alex is overplaying his hand.”

  Dempsey rattles on for a few more minutes, promising to prove his accusations “well beyond a reasonable doubt.” He closes by pleading with the jury to “do the right thing and send a message that Cook County will not tolerate wanton violence against our brave law enforcement professionals who put their lives on the line for us each and every day.” If nothing else, the prosecution’s opening statement seems to bear out Mike’s contention that Papa’s prosecution is at least in part a bone being tossed to the FOP.

  Judge Mitton turns to us. “Does the defense wish to make an opening statement?”

  “The defense reserves our opening statement, Your Honor,” Mike replies. Our opening will be the first salvo in our attack on the prosecution’s argument when we present the defense case. It seems prudent to keep our near total lack of strategy to ourselves.

  A procession of witnesses who establish the facts of the case fills the rest of the afternoon: the 9-1-1 operator who fielded the initial call; the responding police officers and paramedics; the police department evidence technicians who processed the scene; the coroner who performed the autopsy on O’Reilly. The coroner posits that the downward trajectory of the bullet that struck the deputy is best explained by Papa shooting from the top of the porch while O’Reilly stood at the base of the steps. Mike sits quietly through it all, voicing only a handful of objections when witnesses stray from fact into conjecture about motive or the unknowable circumstances of the shooting. Judge Mitton sustains them all. The prosecution trots out its psychologist following a brief recess. After an interminable recitation of the man’s credentials and curriculum vitae, Dempsey finally gets around to exploring the shrink’s findings about Papa. They spend a ridiculous amount of time on this, expounding upon theories of behavior and hypotheticals while the jurors do their best to follow along—not to mention simply stay awake. The shrink eventually finishes up by asserting that Papa is some sort of homicidal sociopath. This finally gets the jurors’ attention.

  Mike assures me that dueling psychologist testimony is seldom the turning factor in a trial. He begins his cross-examination by strolling over to stand a few feet away from the psychologist. “Would it be fair to say that most anyone in Mr. Valenti’s position would be a little out of sorts after the shooting?”

  “Out of sorts?”

  “Not quite himself. Maybe in a bit of shock about what’s happened?”

  The doctor ponders this for a moment. “Perhaps somewhat. But given the socio—”

  “So,” Mike says to cut off an extended reply, “we’ve established that Mr. Valenti may not have been his usual self the night of the shooting.”

  “I didn’t—” the doctor manages to say before Mike cuts him off again.

  “Please, Doctor,” he says with an engaging smile, “in the courtroom, I get to ask the questions and you get to answer them. If I’m ever in your office, then you can tell me whatever else is on your mind. Fair enough?” Mike casts a quick look toward the jury while he says this, the unspoken subtext being “Doesn’t this guy ever shut up?”

  Mike carries on conversationally, “Given that Mr. Valenti might not have been quite himself in the wee hours of September eighteenth, how many more times did you visit with him and, if you don’t mind telling us, how often did you go? Every couple of weeks? Every month? Every other month?”

  “Objection!” Alex Dempsey finally says in an effort to break Mike’s stride.

  “Grounds?” Mitton asks.

  “Mr. Williams isn’t allowing the witness to answer the questions. He’s asking multiple questions at once.”

  “One question at a time, Mr. Williams,” Mitton orders.

  Mike bows his head towards the judge. “I’m sorry, Your Honor.” He eases a little closer to the witness box and asks again how many times the doctor examined Papa.

  “As is standard in such cases, my assessment is based upon the initial psychological assessment that was undertaken in the hours after arrest,” the psychologist says tartly.

  Mike cocks his head to the side for a long moment before he asks his next question. “Surely, you’re not telling us that your findings are based entirely upon the bail report prepared in the Cedar Heights lockup by a social worker on the night of the shooting, are you, Doctor?”

  “That is standard practice, Counselor,” the doctor replies, “as I’m sure you know.”

  “No follow-up interview or additional assessments were carried out during the months Mr. Valenti has been incarcerated?” Mike asks in wide-eyed disbelief.

  “There never is, Counselor, as you also know,” the doctor replies testily.

  “Interesting.” Mike cocks an eyebrow and shakes his head in wonder. While Alex Dempsey probably wants his witness to answer the initial questions and shut up, Mike is making no effort to curtail the doctor’s snide asides. “Let’s back up to your initial testimony, shall we Doctor?”

  “If you want.”

  “That was quite an impressive list of credentials you and Mr. Dempsey told us about,” Mike observes.

  The doctor nods. He’s clearly pleased to have his qualifications acknowledged again.

  “You have a great deal of experience testifying in court, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “In how many trials have you testified?”

  The shrink puffs up. “I don’t keep track.”

  “Really?” Mike asks.

  “Really.”

  “During a trial in this courthouse just last month, do you remember being asked and answering that same question?”

  “Vaguely.”

  Mike walks toward the witness box until he’s looking down his nose at the good doctor. “Do you recall replying that you have testified upwards of two hundred times, perhaps as many as three hundred?”

  “That rings a bell. Yes.”

  “And counting today, Doctor, how many of those times have you given testimony at the request of the prosecution?”

  “Many times.”

  “Have you ever, even once, been asked to or offered your services to defense counsel?”

  “I don’t believe I have.”

  “Is your answer ‘zero times?’”

  “It is.”

  “Approximately how many days a year do you spend testifying in court?”

  “Again, that’s not something one keeps track of.”

  “Humor me, Doctor. You must keep track for income tax purposes, if nothing else. Would it be fair to say that you te
stify in one hundred cases per year?”

  “Probably not that many.”

  “Fifty?”

  “I really can’t say.”

  “I did a little checking,” Mike says. “Just locally, you know… Cook County, Kane County, Lake County, DuPage County, Will, McHenry. The Chicago metro area. Did you know that court records show that you’ve testified in at least five hundred and twenty cases in the past five years?”

  “If you say so.”

  “That’s over one hundred cases every year!” Mike marvels. “If you’re in court for even one or two days in each of those trials and spend a day or so assembling your assessments, being an expert witness for prosecutors is pretty much a full-time job for you.”

  “Is there a question somewhere in there?” Alex Dempsey mutters.

  “Would it be fair to say that you’re essentially a full-time employee of local prosecutors?” Mike asks.

  “I am not an employee of any prosecutor’s office,” the doctor retorts haughtily. “I am a professional psychologist in private practice.”

  “Do you actually see patients?”

  The psychologist glowers up at Mike. “No.”

  “Your only clients are prosecutors. Is that a fair assessment of your ‘practice,’ Doctor?”

  After the doctor answers with a sullen “one might say that,” Mike walks away from him without a second glance, leaving Judge Mitton to dismiss the witness.

  “We’ll adjourn here for the day,” the judge announces.

  We feel like we’ve done well. While Mike has hopefully blunted the testimony of the prosecution’s psychologist by painting him as a shill for the prosecution, he cautions against getting overly excited about it. “The best thing about that is that it ended the prosecution’s day on a down note and court is dark tomorrow.”

  “But?” I ask.

  “Alex was just laying the groundwork today. He’ll do his heavy lifting starting Friday.”

  After replaying the afternoon in my mind, Mike’s little triumph over the psychologist seems a minor blip against the hours the prosecution spent laying brick after relentless brick to build a solid case against Papa.